New
Line Studios (DVD), ASIN B00005TPLWWiley Wiggins
-- or rather his character in the animated film Waking Life
-- cannot wake from a seemingly endless series of lucid dreams, dreams
in which he realizes he is dreaming. He can manipulate all objects except
lights. The substance of each dream/vignette varies, but the most frequent
thread weaves around pieces of wisdom and philosophy Wiggins picks up
along the way, clues which shake his sense of time and illuminate a media-whipped
apathy. Finally, the film leaves you with a sense that maybe the messages
we receive from our noses, eyes, ears, tongues actually prevent us from
perceiving truth.

Directed
by Richard Linklater (Tape, Dazed and Confused), each vignette
varies in terms of animation style. One of the strongest influences throughout
appears to be the Expressionist movement of the early 20th century, characterized
by the paintings of Matisse. Expressionism favored explorations of the
artist's and viewer's states of mind rather than accurate interpretations
of the real world. Some of the color choices, in this light, seem pedantic
(red for anger, for example).

In total, the look
reminds me of fever dreams -- not the dreams themselves but the feeling
of them. A few of the vignettes clunk, especially the vignette set in
the local tavern. (Okay, I get it: guns are bad.) But the far greater
majority will provoke probing minds into focusing on the most ordinary
of social transactions -- for example, saying hello to a passing stranger.
We say hello, we pass and never meet again in a world seeming to grow
vastly more lonely with each passing stranger. (After several minutes
of scintillating conversation, Wiggins leans in and asks, "How does it
feel to be part of my dream?").

Linklater plays to
his unique strengths, fusing a look to a film that makes philosophy not
just provocative but witty and, while not necessarily romantic, ultimately
life-affirming. One of the very first vignettes imaginatively focuses
on Sartre and existentialism, often painted as a godless and bleakly amoral
philosophy. Linklater examines instead the actual central tenets of responsibility
and meaningful interaction. Themes of engagement and connection underlie
all of Linklater's work, and in Waking Life his themes match
the equally beautiful setting.